17 February 2009 8:11 AM

Clonk! Two independent nuclear deterrents collide. Nobody hurt.

I once spent a very enjoyable weekend in a nuclear missile submarine. Since HMS Repulse long ago retired, I think I can write pretty freely about the experience, which included singing 'Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, forgive our foolish ways' during the unapologetically Christian service which was held aboard every Sunday in those days. I wonder if they still do that?

The whole visit had to be arranged like a spy rendezvous in a John le Carre novel. I was told to be at Glasgow airport at a stated time, where I would be met. Having made contact, I and another journalist were escorted to a light plane bound for the Isle of Skye, then asked to wait in a waterside pub for some sort of signal, then bounced in a rather small boat in choppy waters across the Kyle of Lochalsh. I am not sure exactly when she surfaced, because I was looking the wrong way, but I suddenly became aware of a dark grey shape in the water ahead.

The hardest bit was scrambling up the steep, rounded side on to a very odd deck, a series of steel lids under which the Polaris missiles rather obviously sat. I imagined, for a moment, how it would look if those lids ever flipped open, and what it would mean. Once below decks, I was astonished by the spaciousness, more like a smallish Channel steamer than the conventional submarines I had visited in long ago Portsmouth Navy Days. Repulse was 425 feet long and 33 feet wide. The new Trident boats are even bigger - more than 491 feet long and almost 42 feet wide. You cannot see most of this bulk, a great black barrel covered with acoustic tiles, which is always under water even when the boat is on the surface. I have no idea how deep we went - there was very little sensation of depth, though I remember waking in the middle of the night to hear the words: 'Submarine going to 300 feet' being spoken softly over the public address.

Most speaking was soft. We were supposed to be quiet as a matter of course while submerged. Submariners often irritate their families when they get home, because they are so ridiculously quiet, closing every door softly, seldom raising their voices.

Artificial night and day were imposed by dimming or brightening the lights. The air was repeatedly recycled - so that on long patrols any colds and flu went round the whole ship's company pretty quickly and then stopped. But the resultant air was so bland that sailors were often physically sick when first exposed to real, fresh air, rich with smells, after weeks of the filtered stuff. They were also warned not to drive for a few days, as their eyes had forgotten how to adjust to distances. In case anyone went round the bend or otherwise caused trouble, the missiles were guarded by men who had a lump of wood handy, and were prepared to use it. I enjoyed the contrast between the nuclear warheads, each capable of vaporising a city, and the crude club used by those who guarded them. They were good-natured people. They let me help with a dummy launch (two officers had to agree, since they really did have the appalling independent power to launch a million deaths if they thought London was destroyed and there was nobody else to give the order). I remember that the bright red launch trigger, which they let me squeeze, was actually rather like a Scalextric control grip.

I was able to wander round the actual missile tubes (an area known in US Navy subs as 'Sherwood Forest' but given no such name in Repulse. But I was kept away from a very hot and steamy zone known as 'Steam Drain Alley' where the nuclear reactor was, and wasn't specially sorry to keep my distance from it. I've always found reactors, which are hot and alive, more worrying than warheads, which are (apart from a little bit of radioactive gas) inert until armed and triggered.

There was a formal dinner in the wardroom (during which officers were required to wear semi-formal clothes designated by the term 'Red Sea Rig') with some decent red wine served (many people in contact with nuclear weapons believe red wine protects them. The officers' club in the Soviet nuclear bomb testing site offered a very good Georgian red, probably the delicious Mukuzani). Afterwards we watched a film, on an old-fashioned projector, videos then being a rarity and DVDs unknown.

This was when the Cold War was still very much under way. The men in charge of the missile room jokingly referred to themselves as the Greater Moscow Redevelopment Corporation. The Captain, a very serious and thoughtful man as well as an amazingly competent one (the procedures for becoming a nuclear submarine captain would eliminate most of humanity in the first stages, and almost all the rest in the second stage), knew perfectly well that if he ever had to launch his missiles, his mission would have failed. But the job was not what you would have expected. Mostly it consisted of hiding, while travelling at very slow speeds, not very far away from home. Every so often they had to come close to the surface and trail an aerial to pick up messages sent from special frequency transmitters, including 'familygrams' from home (missile submarines never transmit messages, as that would ensure their detection). I think members of the ship's company had to choose in advance whether they wanted serious bad news included in such messages, or kept till they got home. Occasionally, they would go out to the Florida coast for a test-firing. The Captain recalled surfacing after one such launch, and hearing the international frequency on his radio crackling into life as a heavily Russian-accented voice said: 'Congratulations, captain, on a successful launch.' The Soviet Navy watched everything.

These submarines had enormously powerful engines, as I saw when we negotiated some terrifying straits off the Scottish Coast on the surface, where the vicious and unpredictable tidal currents had been known to spin a full-sized battleship round. We were doing this to stay out of the way of the Soviet 'trawler' then permanently stationed off Malin Head in Northern Ireland, fizzing with electronic equipment designed to detect the movement of our very small number of deterrent submarines, of which a maximum of two were usually deployed. All the Soviet Navy had to do was to track them as they left their Faslane base, and they could then destroy them in the early stages of a conflict before they could be used.

But those engines were seldom if ever used for speed, which as we now see is a good thing. Who knows what might be hanging around? Their main purpose was endurance, the ability to vanish and stay vanished for months on end. Once out of the Clyde bottleneck, the submarines headed out into a rather small patch of the Atlantic (I won't say which patch, just in case it still matters) from which they could be sure of hitting Moscow if the command came. Inevitably, French submarines were in the same area, since the range of their missiles was similar to ours, about 2,500 miles. What slightly baffles me about the collision between HMS Vanguard and Le Triomphant is that both carry missiles with much longer ranges than that - Vanguard's Trident missiles can travel 4,600 miles and land within 100 yards of their targets. The French equivalents can travel 3,700 miles and land within 500 yards of their targets. That means they have a much bigger area where they can hide and still hit any potential target. So it is hard to see why they should have been nosing about in the same bit of the sea.

As to why they bumped into each other, that's easy. Their main job is to stay silent (as noted above) and so they rely on 'passive' sonar - that is, they listen out for other submarines, rather than blasting out giveaway pings to see if anything is there. Such pings would immediately locate them, probably hundreds of miles away, given the sensitivity of modern underwater microphones, and the amazing capacity of water to carry sound. So they never use them. They just listen. Engineers have worked for years to create quiet engines, quiet reactor pumps, quiet fridges - and of course the people are quiet too. And then the boats are covered in thick rubbery acoustic tiles which deaden any noise. In some ways, the collision is rather good news - since it proves that both these important navies have advanced a long way in silencing techniques.

That's important because no deterrent is independent which can be found by anyone, including your allies - which is possibly why they didn't share their patrol patterns.

I had a lot of time to think about all this from the other end when I lived in Moscow. Even when I was there, there was still the remote possibility (very remote by 1990, but who knows) of being incinerated by our own weapons. But the main effect was one of inconvenience. We couldn't go picnicking in the lovely woods around the city, because they were full of ABM (Anti Ballistic Missile) bases which we weren't supposed to see, designed to blast Polaris out of the sky. Almost all the roads were closed to westerners, and I had to turn down the offer of a delightful country cottage because it lay in a closed area. I still managed to get out into the forest for the occasional shashlik party, but nothing like as much as I would like to have done.

Some of my colleagues had accidentally come across these silos while lost on homeward roads, and the militiamen who stopped them had tended to agree it was better to pretend the incident hadn't happened, for everyone's sake. There is no doubt they were there. They still are, and have recently been modernised, the only such complete system ever built, or ever likely to be. The old NATO codeword for the original ABM missiles was (I've always believed) an elaborate anti-Soviet joke involving a multiple play on words. The word was 'Galosh'. At that time Soviet condoms, officially known as 'Protektivi" or 'Protectives' were colloquially known by Russians as 'Galoshki', for reasons I'll leave readers to speculate upon. Sorry about that.

Russian friends in Moscow would joke that some of the more horrible examples of Soviet concrete architecture were 'a job for your Polaris.' One Russian friend, whose father had been a Soviet Navy nuclear submarine captain, was scathing about the safety and technological backwardness of the USSR's boats. But, like everything else in the old USSR defence system, they were crude enough to be reliable in all conditions, and numerous enough to ensure that something would have got through.

That's all over now. I absolutely supported the British deterrent at the time. But I remember, after the end of the Cold War, going aboard a US Navy support ship to watch a test-launch (I think in 1995) of Britain's first Trident missile off Cocoa Beach in Florida. We spent most of the time dodging a Greenpeace attack boat. The BBC reporter had gone down with a bad throat, and asked me if I'd give an account of the sight to Anna Ford, then presenting the Radio 4 'Today' programme, over the phone. I did so, and gave what I like to think was a rather lyrical description of the huge rocket leaping from the sea, propelled from its underwater silo by a blast of gas and steam, seeming to hover motionless for a moment, then igniting and soaring into space. I also knew that, less than a quarter of an hour later its re-entry vehicles were falling on their targets in another part of the Atlantic.

'Do you approve of this, then?' the lovely Ms Ford asked frostily, and I thought rather ungratefully, since it was the small hours of the morning and I'd done it as a sort of favour. I remember answering that yes, given that North Korea and Saddam Hussein seemed to be getting their own nuclear weapons, we ought to have one too. I now realise that I hadn't properly reconstructed my thinking since the end of the Cold War. Trident is an anti-Soviet weapon, useless against Pyongyang or Tehran or the mythical Iraqi WMD. I suspect we'd do better to maintain a small arsenal of ordinary H-bombs and supersonic planes to drop them, and perhaps some nuclear-tipped cruise missiles too.

But the Trident fleet (like its French equivalent) is an anachronism. New Labour support it as part of their effort to pretend they're not left-wing radicals. Funny that they support it now, when it doesn't matter, but opposed it when it did matter. The Tories support it because they are so embarrassed about the way they devastated the armed forces in the Thatcher-Major days, and wish to look macho. Actually, the main nuclear defence we need is a programme to build several dozen nuclear power stations, so that we can have energy independence in the coming lean times. And the main non-nuclear defence we need is to secede from the EU, the biggest real threat to our national future and independence since William the Conqueror.

Comments

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Mr Hitchens,
Re: Trident, and the necessity for it in 2011 and the foreseeable future.
You say that Trident is unecessary because it is an anti soviet weapon.
Another threat similar to the Soviet Union could emerge in the near or distant future. If we have abandoned Trident, what would we use to defend ourselves?
We would wish that we still had Trident. It would take many years to restore it,
if you think how long it takes to build the boats and to select and train the crews.
If you compare it to living in a jungle full of wild animals. While there are lions
and tigers about, you would have large calibre rifles , capable of stopping a fully grown lion or tiger instantly. You would also have a variety of smaller firearms to hunt small game for food.
If the lions and tigers went elsewhere, you would be a fool to dispose of your large calibre rifles; the lions and tigers might one day come back, and what would you do then? You would have to reacquire the big rifles, which would be difficult or impossible. In that instance your defence policy would be about fear and hope.
Better to retain the big rifles, just in case.
Britain does have the capability to produce freefall H-bombs, to be dropped from Tornado bombers. The Start treaties permit this, and even if they didn't , we would still do it, just in case. To be able to deal with the unforeseen. Only a fool designs his defence capabilities on clearly predictable threats. Examples of such foolish people are Boy George Osborne and David Cameron; neither of them has any real understanding of defence matters.
The freefall bombs could be manufactured in a matter of days. That is one of the reasons it is so important to maintain the Tornado fleet at full strength. It means we have our nuclear deterrent eggs in more than one basket.
As for the russians being able to track the Trident submarines when they leave their home base at Faslane, the Royal Navy is acutely aware of this, as are all submariners. I believe there are countermeasures to prevent this happening.
One obvious such measure is to have the Trident submarine shadowed by a
Royal Navy hunter killer submarine as it leaves port to ensure that it is not being tailed. Each submarine would check the other's rear, rather like soldiers on a jungle patrol looking in opposite directions, to guard each other's backs.
The Nimrod aeroplane would also have shadowed the Trident submarine
from the air, detecting any enemy submarines on the Trident's tail. Nimrod must be restored, as it is an essential part of the creditibility of the Trident system.

To John Demetriou. Scratching my head too. Can't think of anything likely. Even the Mad Mullahs aren't that mad. Although who knows what the future brings. Your assertion lacks a certain logic. Just because an outcome is unlikely doesn't mean it won't happen. Here I am sitting writing this right at this moment with 10 burnt out rollups in the ashtray and a half dunk glass of Dandelion and Burdock next to it. I mean what are the chances of that happening.

Peter, I remember about two years ago in an article you correctly anticipated that Blair was talking rot when he said globalisation would bring our standards to the 3rd world. Rather, as you anticipated, it is bringing 3rd world standards to western Europe. It can only get worse and worse and worse. That isn't being pessimistic, merely realistic.

Tony Dodd, I'm not sure that I can provide any further "military analysis."

The possible scenarios I outlined in my previous post are all very vague, as you might expect when trying to guess what might be happening 50 years hence.

The situations I described would seem to me to stem from desperation, either for energy, materials, or food.
My guess is that all these commodities will be in short supply to some extent within the service life of the proposed new nuclear missile system.

A possible source of conflict could arise if there were a local disagreement over some valuable resource (arctic oil possibly?) which may then escalate rapidly, such that a nation in posession of a credible nuclear deterrent will be able to stand their ground, rather than be swept aside.

I enjoyed the article regarding your short stay aboard HMS/M Repulse. I served aboard HMS/M Resolution during the early 70's, joining her after her first refit and working her upto full operational readiness. The process took many weeks and only when we were absolutely ready did we go to the States to test fire one of our "Birds"as we affectionately called them. The firing went very well and we returned to "Blighty" ready for anything. Our "on crew" period lasted three months, of which eight weeks was spent on patrol, somewhere at sea!" Spending eight weeks shut in an upholstered sewer pipe with 130 other souls, not to mention 16 A3 Polaris missiles could be very wearing and the end of a successful patrol and return to Faslane, was an opportunity to let our hair down in the local hostelries of Helensburgh. We worked hard and played even harder. Submariners are a special breed of men, dedicated and very brave and at the same time very ordinary. They have great respect for fellow submariners of all nationalities because they share a common foe, namely, the deep ocean. We were all volunteers in the Submarine Service, and proud to serve in the silent service.

We have at present a rise of the ; 'Rise of The Far Right' tendency , and it is getting worse.
Since our Country came under attack from within , those most guilty of treachery have constantly gibbered away about the 'Threat Of The Far Right' to disable criticism of their own extremist and destructive policies.
It is tiresome.
Anyone with a modicum of political sense , and any understanding of the political history of this Country , knows this.
The 'BNP' ( that is , in this instance , Special Branch/MI5 in my opinion ) have been used to break up the first 'Fuel Protest' and more recently 'blacken the name' of those striking to protect their ability to work in their own homeland.
The real wonder is that no actual reactionary movement has developed. Yet.
As for Germans laughing at the fledgling Nazi Party in the early '1920s'. That is wrong.They did not.
Adolf Hitler was always a serious individual with a potential for 'Great Things'. This was obvious even when he was addressing half empty rooms. A study of the era will demonstrate that the NASDAP was hampered in part by a profusion of other 'far right' political groups. Not ridicule.
By 1923 the Nazis had already attempted an armed insurrection ; the famous 'Beer Hall Putsch'.
We clearly have nothing in any way similar in contemporary Britain.
Constant lies about the 'Far Right' are part of a political ploy.

Tony Dodd says: "Contributors seem to have rather strayed from the original topic of this thread. I am disappointed that current devotees of nuclear deterrence have yet to suggest a plausible(or better, likely) scenario in which they might be used."

Yes, one does wonder how such a situation might arise.
As it is, our current Trident system will cover us until 2025 or so. The length of time required to implement a replacement system dictates that a decision on it must be made now.

But can anyone predict what kind of world we will be living in by 2025? Or in 2050?
How powerful will China have become? Will world resources of energy, materials, and above all, food, be 50 be in short supply? Can the ever-expanding population of China and India avoid starvation?

Will there be disputes over these resources? Might there be conflict? Can we rely on the USA to protect us, which by then may have been usurped as the No.1 superpower, and 'shut up shop'?

How powerful will the Muslim world be by then? When the oil of the Middle East has run out, how desperate might this region become?

I cannot answer these questions. I doubt whether anyone can. But if we spend £20 billion or so now, our children, and grand children, might thank us.

Even if we have sadly been absorbed into the EU by then, at least our nuclear subs and mighty new aircraft carriers will provide the backbone of a credible military for the mid 21st Century.

I won't go into all the reasons right now, but a SLBM system such as Trident is really only the credible deterrent, though it represents massive overkill.
I have given the matter much thought, and I cannot think of anything any better.

John Demetriou comments on my last post thus: "You mention the high quality of British manufacturing at one point in your post. I'm not so sure. One of the reasons our car industry is totally dead and buried is because of bad quality. British Leyland anyone?"

You cannot draw any parallels between British Leyland, and British manufacturing as it is today.
Since those dark days we have seen the introduction of ideas such as "KanBan", "Just In Time", "Six Sigma" etc. Any major manufacturing business which fails to incorporate these ideologies is doomed.
British Industry has learned from debacles such as British Leyland, and is the better for it. From University down, lean manufacturing is drilled into our engineers and technicians from the word go.

You challenge my assertion that British engineering is winning back orders from the Far East, and put it down to the weakness of the pound.
No! This has been going on for some time, and it is due to the simple realisation that if you need a few thousand parts, turned to micro-meter accuracy on a five-axis machine, with a 5-day lead time, China will let you down, both in response time, and in accuracy. If you can wait a few months for the container to turn up on the docks, then fine.
We must exploit these niches in the market, and at all costs, continue to invest in the technology which will maintain any lead we have. The Chinese are always one or two generations of technology behind us, and we must keep it this way.

I'm not convinced that the Tories would do much to help. Where matters of industry or defence are concerned, politicians simply do not have a clue, whatever their colour.

John Demetriou is correct in two very important areas; they are not unrelated.

Firstly, the economic crisis that has now inevitably come to pass is certainly not just a matter of economics, but a failure of duty and responsibility encompassing politicians, bankers, institutional shareholders and many in the media. It is the sort of failure, even negligence, which is punished when it occurs on a smaller scale and is perpetrated by those who are not “untouchable”. If the reasons behind what has happened, the untruths that are still being told and the concealment that persists are not thoroughly investigated and those responsible brought very publicly to account, the great majority of people who live and work in this country and who abide by the rules will have it confirmed to them that they are being played for suckers. As it is, those concerned with morality might care to think about the consequences of the actions now being taken by the government and Bank of England, which could be mistaken for an attempt to reduce the severity of government debt by encouraging inflation, at the expense of all those who have worked and saved.

Secondly, the potential of the BNP and/or other extremist parties to rapidly increase their support should not be dismissed. I will not drone on about this, but once due to the above it becomes crystal clear to “ordinary” working people that no-one, but no-one in the ruling class is representing them, indeed that they are being lied to and sacrificed, they will turn elsewhere – nature abhors a vacuum.

By the way, I do hope that, whatever action might be taken against Demetriou (if any), that it won't be a banning order from this weblog. This would undoubtedly constitute a violation of The Hitch maxim. Namely, that everything should be thinkable and sayable. As a fierce defender of the right to free speech, this contributor for one couldn't abide it. Of course, if it's a matter for the courts, that's a different story. Perhaps Mr Buchanan himself will need to be contacted. I do hope that Mr Demetriou doesn't think that I'm fanning the flames. I'd never do such a thing. Let us hope that this regrettable episode has a happy ending for all concerned.

You mention the high quality of British manufacturing at one point in your post. I'm not so sure. One of the reasons our car industry is totally dead and buried is because of bad quality. British Leyland anyone?

We are winning back orders to a degree, yes. Why? The pound is weak. And let's be fair, people across all classes have made good hay over the last 10-12 years due to the very very strong pound - cheap holidays, cheap clothes etc.

Health & safety regs. I agree with you, the EU inspired bureaucracy is ridiculous and I oppose much of it. I also think taxes are far too high, and I also think there's an argument for re-opening some pits and engaging in a tentative re-exploration of manufacturing and mining. But my overarching fear is this, Mr Whitfield: the left are always there, lurking round the corner, waiting to hijack and capitalise for the furtherance of socialist aims and ambitions.

I'm not sure it would be worth the pain. Look what the left has done since they changed their line of attack to bolstering the public sector and stacking it with left wing non jobs? The public sector, unlike how it was a decade ago, has all the best paid jobs and it's all funded by the besieged tax payer.

We need to ensure that the Tory Party is best equiped to take on the left and undo its wrongs. This doesn't mean abandoning it, it means putting pressure on it.

"By the way, Demetriou, you really do inflate the threat posed by the Far Right."

No, Wesley, I don't inflate it. BNP presence is constantly on the increase, they are making constant in roads and it is because people are getting seriously fed up with things. This isn't to support the BNP or make excuses for potential supporters, it is to state that Labour have abandoned the working classes and the country has been run totally run into the ground. Overpopulation because of unfeterred immigration (see Labour's abandonment of the Primary Purpose rule a decade ago) and overstretched facilities and social housing have given the BNP fertile ground to grow. With the coming collapse in the economy (inflation, debt etc) and with mass unemployment, I can honestly see the BNP being represented in parliament.

"It's minuscule. Who cares about the farcical BNP? They have something like 3 000 members. You're always banging on about the 'Far Right'. It doesn't get much more threatening than Tyndall dressed in an SS uniform, I'm afraid."

This may sound silly, but most Germans said very very similar things about Hitler and the NSDAP in the early '20s. They laughed at his fledgling group of thugs, and the low membership numbers and the farcical nature of their goings on.

All it takes is for peoples' livlihoods to be threatened, their homes to be threatened, their abilities to put food on the table to be threatened, and you suddenly have a worrying state of affairs.

Nationalism isn't the exclusive preserve of distant continental nation states, Wesley. It could happen here. Let us not be complacent.

to add: I have apologised for my out of order comments on Buchanan and the BNP. See my other post for clarification and apology.

I have considered my remarks about Buchanan and Mr Hitchens's representations in protestation against them.

I agree, I was hasty, wrong and out of line.

Whilst I hold my personal views of the man, it is my responsibility to be careful in how I posit them, without over stepping the mark. Over stepping the mark is what I have done in several ways and Hitchens is right to point out my transgressions and challenge them.

So, I unreservedly apologise to Mr Buchanan and also Mr Hitchens who is the author of this site.

I do hold the belief that the right of the Republican Party is very similar to the BNP. This is my view, backed by my understanding of the politics of the BNP and a section of the right of the Republican Party. However, my slant on Buchanan and the BNP was unfair. So apologies.

On the Holocaust, I had in mind what he said about white guilt and political correctness falling out as a result of the genocide. However, as Hitchens says, I leave the reader thinking the worst (though this is not what I intended). I in no way said or believe that he is a Holocaust denier. He isn't. Fault lies with me in not explaining what I meant properly. So unreserved apologies there too.

Finally, my comments about what I think Buchanan 'probably' says in private. Naturally, of course, I have no way of knowing what he says in private. I've never met him or been privy to private conversation. I don't even have hearsay to bandy (not that I'd do that of course). Mr H feels this transgresses the rules of civilised debate, and on reflection it was harsh and silly of me to make comments like that. Again, unreserved apologies.

I guess I have fallen guilty of what I often accuse the left of doing - making sweeping attacks without sitting down and properly using the facts and quotes to explain underlying thoughts and feelings.

I would like to say that I am hurt by your calling me semi-literate. My standards of grammar are far from perfect, but my writing isn't that bad. Can I expect an apology for this remark?

To address your points on my dissertation subject: I studied the resurgence of the far Right in Europe during the '90s. I found overwhelming evidence to show that there was indeed somewhat of a revival. Increased attacks on Synagogues throughout Europe, Jorg Haider in Austria, the rise of the BNP, Vlaams Bloc in Belgium, and of course Jean Marie le Pen in France and what transpired to be an amazing rise in the early '0s where he faced off Chirac in the Presidential election. I found much much more on the subject, and it was very interesting. Could you explain your contempt of my studies and my university more clearly?

I must add right away that I don't link or make any association with the above groups and individuals and Buchanan. I apologise and withdraw any comments I made that made it seem that my studies somehow found Buchanan to be of such a dubious disposition.

I hope that the above complete, unreserved apology is to your satisfaction Mr Hitchens, and please once again accept my apologies for my transgression. I withdraw all the attacks I made against Mr Buchanan and I intend to be more careful in what I pen from here on in.

Contributors seem to have rather strayed from the original topic of this thread. I am disappointed that current devotees of nuclear deterrence have yet to suggest a plausible(or better, likely) scenario in which they might be used. A bit like keeping a fire extinguisher in an igloo?

Right let's nationalise everything, nationalised industries are so superior to anything else. Except that governments have no idea how to run busineses, they over-staff them, swamp them with red tape and generally interfere. It's very easy to do as they don't have to worry about where the money is coming from - the taxpayer is always there. I'll admit things are far from perfect but you don't have the answer. I also think that a lot of the mistakes the bankers made were actively encouraged by this government.

So don't care for Enoch Powell's use of logic, well what else is there? Like most people you only use logic up to a point, as soon as it comes up with an answer you don't like you try to make the illogical work and then seem to be surprised when it doesn't.

Oh dear, Demetriou finds himself in a real pickle. I knew he'd come unstuck one of these days. Even by my own (shall we say, rather robust) way of putting things, Demetriou is uncomfortably vituperative in this instance. Even as a foe, Demetriou, I'll still give you a friendly warning that you should follow Hitchens's advice. It all sounds rather ominous.

But I have to say that this notion that Buchanan has made disgraceful utterances on the Holocaust and so forth has been mentioned on this weblog before. And, then as now, the accusations went unsubstantiated. Christopher Hitchens, I think, has implied that the political tradition from which Buchanan comes from is disreputable.

But apart from some vague murmurings about 'Fascism', it was never made clear exactly how. It's time that it was on this weblog once and for all, I reckon.

I don't know why people are sick of talking about the financial crisis. Is this a case of people not understanding what is going on and therefore sticking their fingers in their ears hoping all the nasty news will go away?

It won't go away. Better to understand the beast that is the economic meltdown than to ignore it - after all, it's your money and your future. Everyone's.

Many people obviously don't read my website, which discusses the matter often and in detail. Go there and educate yourselves.

I must add now however; I didn't see too many Mail readers complaining when the price of their homes were going through the roof. I didn't see to many Mail readers kick a stink at the ominous nature of the securitisation market and how it was all unfolding in the States several years back.

I didn't see too many Mail readers kicking off about greedy bankers and city bonuses before October 2008. I seem to recall that it was mostly middle England Mail readers that have been so keen to watch property programmes like Place in the Sun, whilst buying up second and holiday homes and buy to lets. Turning people like me into the new downtrodden tenant class, paying into the pockets of the greying, smug Suburban fascists.

Yes, that's right. You Mail reading right wingers all have your little part to play in the whole sorry circus that has befallen the country. Don't just stand back and point your cocky little fingers at those you jealously regard as above and beyond you.

Ot's oh so easy to blame "the greedy bankers", in a strange old Labour sounding twist. It smacks of not having a clue and not being bothered to find out.

But it's ok. In a year or two we'll be walking around with wheelbarrows full of inflated, worthless cash so we can buy potatoes in a Zimbabwean-esque currency, having been deprived of everything we ever worked for, while the far right kicks and screams its way through the corridors of power and the 'middle classes' that the Mail are so obsessed by becomes a figment of our imagination. Meanwhile, let's hear some more heart-warming tales about submarines and cheeky policemen at rallies!

By the way, Demetriou, you really do inflate the threat posed by the Far Right. It's minuscule. Who cares about the farcical BNP? They have something like 3 000 members. You're always banging on about the 'Far Right'. It doesn't get much more threatening than Tyndall dressed in an SS uniform, I'm afraid. Your comments about Buchanan may well be libellous.

The Left use the BNP as an excuse to ram through more liberal legislation. And the windbag Keith Vaz, disgracefully sought to smear the courageous protests against foreign workers as having been infiltrated by the BNP. Unlucky Vaz, nobody bought it. Vaz did this, of course, so as to try and divert attention from his beloved EU, which is the root cause of most problems in this country. Let's hope the workers saw through Vaz's obfuscation and realized that they're being governed from Brussels.

Michael Williamson (20th February, 7.05 pm) makes personally abusive remarks about Simon Heffer. Will he please rapidly apologise and withdraw? His offence is not as bad as that of Mr "Demetriou" but we cannot have this kind of thing here.

"John Demetriou" (21st February, 2.27 am) writes from behind the screen of his made up name: "Pat Buchanan is widely regarded as being on the right of the Republican Party, which effectively puts him on a par with the BNP."

Does he think he can explain what he means by this? What exactly are the connections or similarities between the 'right wing' of the Republican Party and the BNP? What , specifically and in detail, do they have uniquely in common?

Mr "Demetriou" then makes a further serious implied allegation, writing of :"some of the outrageous things he (Mr Buchanan) has come out with about the Holocaust" . The reader is plainly intended to think the worst.

So what precisely are these outrageous things? Can Mr "Demetriou" please provide referenced quotations?

Mr "Demetriou" adds:"Anyone who denies that he is a nasty bigotted far-right wing scum bag is clearly ill-informed or they buy into his garbage."

Well, as it happens I disagree with Pat Buchanan about Israel, not 'buying in' to his view on that subject, and wrote a conservative defence of Israel for his magazine 'The American Conservative'. The magazine published this article prominently and without a single cut, hardly the action of a bigot. So what is the evidential basis on which Mr "Demetriou" feels able to utter these abusive remarks from his pseudonymous hidey-hole?

I also contest the claim from Mr "Demetriou" that Mr Buchanan, whom I have met, is a "nasty bigoted scum bag", though I imagine he (like me) would not regard the description 'right wing' as pejorative. Mr Buchanan is a courteous, thoughtful and well-read person. Mr "Demetriou" plainly disagrees with Mr Buchanan. But he is breaking all the rules of civilised debate here.

Then we have this :"My dissertation at University was on the resurgence of the far right."

How very interesting. What sort of 'university' accepts such stuff as the subject for a dissertation? What sort of people decide if it is acceptable? What exactly are the true politics of Mr "Demetriou", who ludicrously accuses me of being a Trotskyist?

Mr "Demetriou" adds in his semi-literate manner:"Pat Buchanan came up many times during my exploration of the subject. I wonder why. Judging by what he publically proclaims, I think I'd be nauseated to hear the disgusting, nasty apologia that probably flows forth in private."

On the basis that we can condemn people on the grounds of what we choose to imagine they say in private, none of us, including Mr "Demetriou" is safe from condemnation. However, civilised persons form their views on the basis of what people actually do say, and can be proven to have said. Mr "Demetriou" must understand that I cannot permit him to make accusations of this kind without producing evidence for them. If he cannot do that, then he must withdraw and apologise publicly to Mr Buchanan. This also applies to his serious allegations above about the BNP and the Holocaust.

If he is not prepared to act as I ask - ie to substantiate fully or to withdraw and fully apologise for the accusations made - by noon on Wednesday 25th February, then there are various steps which I shall feel compelled to take. He may wish to write to me privately to find out what they are. I would rather that he did as I asked.

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